Wives find renewed faith after husbands ‘visit’ heaven

(RNS) The wives of men who claim to have visited heaven in a near-death experience are now telling their side of the story. And for the spouses, life changes nearly as much as it did for the men they nearly lost.

21 Comments

Earold Gunter

Prayed back to life? Really? If this were true, wouldn’t this be a circumvention of “God’s will”? The accident must have been “God’s will” as well, as he controls all, right? This reminds me of Job. God made him suffer tremendously just to “prove” to Satan that he would remain faithful. Why would the creator of all need to prove anything to anyone? Sounds like two people have figured out yet another way to make money from people’s unrealistic beliefs in something that can’t be proved. God is good!

Jim Kearney

Because Our Father in Heaven wants us to KNOW HE is in Heaven, and that there IS a Heaven. You may have grown up in a loving family of faith, but there are many who have suffered Religious abuse, sexual abuse, or have grown up without faith. In His infinite Mercy, He may be allowing these experiences to be reported just as His Miracles in Scripture. God’s thoughts are not your thoughts. You may have a limited understanding of His motives, but that should not blind you to the Grace of so many being uplifted in their old faith or given a new faith at a time when they most need it. Just be grateful for the Grace. You’ll find out why He does this when it’s your own time.

Helen

The accident must have been “God’s will” as well, as he controls all, right?
Not really… this is where we err about God. God never wills us harm in any way. God does allow the natural course of events to take place by not intervening in every action of ours. If He did we would never learn our lessons. It hurts Him more than us to not intervene. It pleases Him when we show love for our neighbor by praying to Him to bless our neighbor and wishing good for our neighbor. He delights in the same and thus is moved to answer our prayer.

Your point on the book of JOB is a good one, which seems to contradict what I have said above. It too was puzzling to me at first and I questioned God about it and also contemplated much on it. The insights from my contemplation were as follows:

True God does not have to prove to anything to anyone. His greatest attributes are love and mercy. He loves the greatest sinner just as He loves the righteous.

JOB has always been upright and blessed in many ways…. his love for God is steadfast. He proved himself to God in good times. But true love should also be steadfast in bad times. Holy Scripture says when much is given, much is expected.

Satan has very little regard for us, humans. When Satan came to God sneering that JOB was only faithful because the blessings God bestowed on him, God allowed Satan to tempt JOB. It was Satan who inflicted the sufferings on JOB. God sustained JOB. God knew JOB will be a much stronger and faithful individual after JOB had gone through the trials and God rewarded JOB accordingly in the end.

It is much like any of man’s invention which has to be put through rigorous tests to discover if the invention lives up to the claims of the inventor. Just like the critics, skeptics of the inventor are allowed to test the invention, so God permitted Satan to test man…. it is through trials that we mature, gain knowledge, understanding, wisdom, fortitude, patience, perseverance, courage and respect of God.

Take time out in the quiet to experience God. He will manifest Himself to anyone who seeks Him sincerely.

Shabtronix

Particularly silly is Oliver Sacks’ comment that so-called “hallucinations” “provide evidence only of the brain’s power to create” metaphysical beings or places. The experience of such beings and places is entirely subjective, but there is not a shred of evidence that anyone’s brain “created” them. Sounds like more barking from believers of the bankrupt physicalist model!

Paul Giroux

When I was a kid, I had 3 diseases at the same time…measles, mumps and pink-eye. I had a terrible fever. My Mom, who slept 2 floors above, ‘somehow’ knew
that my brain was boiling. All of a sudden I was looking at her from above. I saw the back of her head and everything in my room. I remember not wanting to return. I was back into my body and aldways wondered if the fever caused a hallucination. I read many, many years later about near- death experiences. It was just too spooky to ignore. There was no tunnel of light, just a quick return.

Ryan

That’s all fine and good if she want to believe that. But the fact of the matter is it’s all just somebody’s made-up story after they experienced an oxygen-starved brain. When we die we most likely just worm food. Our brain get eaten up. There isn’t any ghost in the machine that rises up like a metaphysical mist that survives death. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. That’s just the way it is. Refusal to accept that is the primary force driving religion.

Jim Kearney

Except for one thing. How does that explain the several instances recorded of people rising above their bodies in their Spirit Body and witnessing their surgery, and or after accidents and then giving a full description of what they saw. AND THEY WERE BLIND IN THE BODY. Splain THAT to me Lucy.

CGDoc

“several instances recorded” Sorry Jim, there have been more than several. There have been several thousand documented cases of people witnessing their own surgeries and/or ER encounters and later telling people what they heard and saw.

Helen

Ryan, we would have been worm food had the Son of God not come to redeem us. We do have a soul, the spiritual part of us along with the physical body. How do you suppose we experience emotions of various levels? Think about it. Can a piece of bone, muscle animate on their own? What causes us to remember events… the brain? What is the brain made of that it can experience: happiness, love, sadness etc? Man has created computers, to think and analyze matter like a human but at a much faster rate… yet the computers cannot fell any of the emotions. The mystery is revealed in religion. Rejoice you and I are not created to be mere worm food we have a Creator Who seeks us out lovingly and Who wants to provide for us in everything. Do not let the evil one deceive you. Spend quiet time discovering this God … He is very close to you… Invite Him in your life… you will be much surprised and delightfully so.

CGDoc

True! You either believe after you hear about Near Death Experience (NDE) or you don’t. In the end, it comes down to Faith. There are those that believe what the Bible teaches about a Heaven and a Hell and those that don’t. Guess we just need to continue to pray for those that don’t.

I continue to remember a story our priest once told us in a Bible Class. A sect of the early Jews were the Sadducees. They did not believe in an afterlife. He went on to say, that is “Sad,U See”.

Earold Gunter

Helen, you said “God never wills us harm in any way”. The “us” must not have included Job’s family. Supposedly they were all killed, if not by his will, then is there someone more powerful? What about the great flood? If you can believe it, I can’t. He supposedly saved Noah and his family, but murdered everyone else in the entire world because they were wicked. Really? Everyone except Noah and his family? They must have not been in the “us” category either. Read the bible. If it doesn’t make you re-think how you view your God, then take the blinders off and read it again. It is absolutely one of the most immoral books ever written.
Good day!

John McGrath

Suppose much of the Bible was about false ideas of God? In Job’s case the real story was his faith and trust, not God’s childish malice. A God of arbitrary and childish malice may well have been deliberately presented as a false idea. In fact, the Book of Job takes the form of a trial, with accusations and witnesses. God – that is, the false idea of god – is on trail and found not innocent.

If you read Genesis 1, you see that God made humanity in God’s likeness – with free will, and with the responsibility to work together to govern this world wisely. God does not take away our freedom by determining our every move or punishing the bad and rewarding the good.

You may read the story of Abraham and Isaac as an example of extreme obedience. I don’t I read it as Abraham’s disobedience to a false idea of God. His conscience (dramatized as an angel) told him human sacrifice, considered a pious necessity at that time in that part of the world, was wrong, an offense against humanity and therefore God. He proceeded to stop the practice among his people. Again, this famous story is another example of the Bible’s presenting a false idea of God and disowning it.

Jean Rathke

It is interesting,Earold, that you would quote Benjamin Franklin. Did you know that he was a freemason? Did you also know that the father of modern day freemasonry was Albert Pike who studied satonism and also witchcraft? The grandfather of freemasonry was Sir Frances Bacon who also studied satonism and witchcraft. That’s sad.

John McGrath

I regularly have dreams about my parents and other dead loved ones. They bring their friends that I never knew. They seem amused when I wonder how they are all of the same age when in this life they were of very different ages. Sometimes they are kids, sometimes adults. They always enjoy themselves, hold witty but normal conversations, garden, play act, tell me stories about their lives that I later find to be true. They are radiantly healthy, without the limitations they had in this life, although they tell me they cannot reveal their true glorified bodies because that would harm me. They sometimes teach me phrases in the “language of numbers’ – 525, for instance, means “he/she lives.” There’s never any talk of God. Only of friendship, kindness, amusement, enjoyment, love.

Do we all imagine the afterlife – whether real or just imagined – differently? Are my dreams a balance to my life of solitude (which I like)? Who knows?

Matilda

Thank you dear for sharing your experience, it is so good for us as Christians to have people who can boldly come out to help us check our walk with God. He is faithful and a great God who doesn’t want us to be lost but to come to a full knowledge of who he is and accept his son Jesus Christ so that we can inherit eternal life .